Barcellona, Spagna

Last time I was standing in a Spanish speaking country, I was in the city it was Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.  This past weekend I visited my second country where Spanish is the official language, this time I was standing in the autonomous community of Catalonia, the city of Barcelona.  My previous visit to Mexico I was able to walk across the boarder, this time I had to fly in (I miss the old days!).  The title of this post is the Italian spelling of Barcelona...

 To get from my hotel to Barcelona central I needed to take the Barcelona Metro, it's a very easy train system to figure out.  My goal in visiting Barcelona was to visit the Sagrada Familia, but to do this my first step was to pass through the train station Espanya.  When I exited this station I turned left and saw the National Museum of Art (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya).

 Seeing an escalator (it's still hot and humid in Spain) I decided to check this area out.  Not all areas were served by escalator, this platform had stairs on either side.

 Looking back from art museum, you can see the fountain behind those four columns, we will talk about that fountain later.

 To get to the Sagrada Familia I thought it would be a good idea to avoid a few subway transfers and walk from the station Espanya to the station Universitat.   This was actually a good idea, did not really save time but I did get to see a lot of local stuff between the two stations.  For example this yellow PROSEGUR vehicle, I assume it's an armed car for the transport of cash money euros.

 Mopeds and other small moto-bikes are all over Barcelona.  One advantage to this style of transportation is that it seems okay to park your bike where ever you want.  

 Get a Hola Card.  I wasted 4 euro's taking two train rides before I figured out this card cost 13 euro for two day open pass to the bus and subway system.

 All over Barcelona were these outdoor markets.  This market was kind of crazy because everyone was dressed like druids.  The crazy thing about a group of people being dressed like druids, and the street market photo does not really show this, was I could not figure out if it was halloween costumes or just normal.  Because of the possibility it was just people being themselves, I was not comfortable to ask if they were dressed up for Halloween.    I kind of think they were just being normal.

 Food was great, most cafe's and bars were full for the FCB vs the Real Madrid football classic, but I was able to find a small spot serving Paella and Sangria.  This was in no way a recommended restaurant but it was by far the best Paella I ever had.  I was even able to order in poorly spoken Spanish.  Hola, paella con shrimp's y calamari por favor.  Si si, sangria grande.  

 All over the city are arrows pointing to things, but if you don't know what you are looking for in Spanish, I don't really feel like these help.

 This was kind of a cool statue, it's a massive cat, the El Gat de Raval by Fernando Botero.

 Along most of the water front of Barcelona is a beach.  At one end of the beach if a statue of Christopher Columbus technically pointing towards Africa (the new world is kind off his left shoulder).

  A small plaza near the beach front.

 Beach is super relax and busy considering it's the end of October and this is the norther hemisphere.   Along the beach are bars where you can get Tex-Mex food!!!  Perfect!

During this trip I visited the history museum,  they had a working model of how locals use to get water out of ground.  This tour guide walked around the well 20 times before water started to fill a garden below the well.   

 Barcelona has an Arc de Triomf, this structure is similar to the one in Paris.

 Me in front of the arch.

 Okay, returning back to where my trip started, the area around the National Museum of Art.  According to the website wiki-travel, the fountain in front of the National Museum of Art has a Thursday through Sunday water show starting at 9pm.  The ray's of light shinning over top of the art museum started at 8:30pm, so for sure the water show would start at 9pm.

 After waiting for over an hour I determined this Sundays show was canceled.  My view of the fountain a few minutes past 9pm was just nothing, no lights or water.   But it was still fun hanging out in the park around the fountain.  And based on the number of people waiting with me, I think many people were waiting for a water show.

Palazzo De Felice

Palazzo De Felice was a small church located within Grottaglie old town, today it's an art and community center.  Grottaglie and Puglia is nice in that historical sites provide information in English and the sign for the church of Palazzo De Felice caught my eye because it helps to explain the Italian floor counting system.

 Reading the sign:

Originally it was only to have one floor, but in 1767 the first floor was added and the facade was rebuilt.

 In Italy, what we would refer to as the first floor in US is actually floor zero.  So if you add one floor to a one floor building, the new second floor is the first floor.  My apartment is on the 4th floor, but actually it's the 5th floor. I'm not sure if Rome or Milan use the same floor numbering system.

I really enjoy the signs in English, I can spend a day walking around 'old towns' and reading these.  You can also see, the plaza around Palazzo De Felice is used for parking at night.  They really need to find new parking spot for historical sites like this...

 Just a note, I installed plugin's for Apple Aperture called the Nik Collection.  It's fun software for processing images, for example making color images black and white.  It works well for photos of Grottaglie at night, everything is lit with this harsh yellow light.  Time to time, I will post images to this blog that were processed using Nik software, but if I start to over-do-it, please let me know. Above was done with Silver Efex Pro 2.

Subtle Influence

I was hoping to cut-back on blog post about having a bike from Japan that I roll around with in a small city in Southern Italy, I was almost able to do that until this past weekend.  I must admit that my bike is a little goofy looking when taken out of context of Japan and even more so, I must also look a little goofy when I'm riding it.

The bar that serves as a meeting point for me and most of my friends and coworkers has bike parking right in front of the out door seating area, along the sidewalk curb.  Usually when I rollup, park my bike and sit down, someone ask "what is that?"  And I respond "that's my bike, it's from Japan."  And after a few seconds someone looks at me and ask, "why don't you get a normal bike, with larger wheels."  In response "It is a normal bike, in Japan."  And this answer usually leads to someone telling me something I know about how I'm not in Japan, this is in fact Italy.

For a minute I started to concede that maybe my bike was not cool... Until this past Sunday when I was walking from my apartment to Old Town Grottaglie and noticed some new graffiti.

 Someone made an image of a folding bike, that looks a lot like my bike on a stone wall with the word  'Grazia' or 'grace' in English above the bike.  Unfortunately this Italian Banksy did not tag his or her name on the wall.

Anyways, subtle influence, obviously riding this bike around Grottaglie has raised its unconscious popularity to the cultural level of someone painting it on a brick wall... I looked all over Grottaglie and yet to see a normal Italian bike gratified on a wall.

Dachau Concentration Camp

The second place I visited in Germany was Dachau and the Dachau Concentration Camp, to get to the camp you need to take a bus from Dachau station.  It's about 30 minutes train from Munich.

 Work will make you free.  This phrase is at the entrance to many concentration camps.

 Through out the area around the prisoners barracks are guard towers.

 Between the guard towers and area where prisoners lived was a zone where no one could enter for fear that they might escape.  Part of the electrified wall is preserved.

 The crematorium is also preserved, it's really surreal, difficult thing to see.

 The path that runs down the length of the  prisoners barracks today looks much like it did back in the 30's and 40's, lined with poplar trees.

 All but two of the original barracks are gone, but the foundations still exist.  Each foundation is numbered.

 Two barracks are still maintained, one is used for storage (as seen by looking in the windows) and the other is kind of a museum. The original toilettes and sink also are kept in within this building, you can imagine looking through this window what it must have looked like.  You can still see the foundations.

 Many memorials have been installed at the camp site.

 One memorial said 'NEVER AGAIN', this one documented the years the camp was open from 1933 to 1945.

 Another tower at the south west corner of the camp.

 Getting to and from Munich to Dachau is relatively easy, I would recommend a visit to this memorial.

München

Since the time that I moved to Italy I did not feel a big need to really travel anywhere. I kind of felt that I needed to become a local of Taranto before I could really feel like a tourist anywhere else in Europe.  This past weekend I decided yep, I'm from Taranto GRT area, time to travel!

 Keeping true to my roots I also decided to make Germany my first port of call, by coincidence it was also Oktoberfest in the city of Munich.  My trip was short, landed Friday at 11am and left Sunday at 6pm, but still had a lot of time to see the city center.

 Munich has a strong beer culture, sings of fun everywhere.  First time I saw a lion in a beer stein doll as a souvenir, Mexico has not even bothered to copy this one.

 This city also has a strong history, a mix of old and new.  All over are cool buildings, parks and fountains.

 And beer gardens.

 I was concern that when I landed here I would have a difficult time communicating and finding my way around  But really the train is easy to use, most people speak English.

 This is the Maypole at Vikualien Market, time for Lincoln Square to step it up a little bit.  

 I'm not sure, but I'm guessing the concept of Octoberfest is year-round.

 This is a fountain outside the New Town Hall at the city center of Marienplatz.

 The first German beer I had in Germany was an Erdiger at a small arts and music festival.  Good beer.  Note the red small disk next to the beer glass, that is my deposit.  Upon returning the stein and the little red disk I got back two Euro and avoided being arrested.

 All over Munich was people enjoying Octoberfest.  The Original Steindl is a store many people go to get suited up for the festivals.

 And everywhere else was people just acting German, wearing Lederhosen and Dirndl.  Actually when a majority of everyone was dressed like this, it becomes normal - nothing special.  

But I was to cheap to drop 199 Euro's on a complete Lederhosen set.  But after some careful thought I determined just the red button up shirt combined with being half German was sufficient to fit in!

Night fall on my first evening in Germany.

Saturday morning was Oktoberfest 2013.  I was waiting outside the tent at 7:15am.... With 1000's of other people from all over the world.

First round was served by 9:45am.

It is nearly impossible to describe how epic this event is, so I wont try.  Please check out the video!